Asked & Answered – Newspaper Subscription Rates

I read your blog everyday since attending a soiree last spring! Will you tell me how you purchase your newspaper? I subscribed when I could get Sun/Thurs for about $1/wk, but now its $9 something per month, but at newsstand is only $1.75 for Sunday! Do you cancel and resubscribe often? How often can I do that? Or what other options. Almost $10/mo doesn’t seem frugal to me at all!!
Thank you!!!

– Jenny

Answered:

Sigh… my newspaper and I have a love hate relationship. When anyone raises my rates, like the cable company, I call and ask for the current promotion. They always give it to me without much of an argument, so I can keep my bills low. But, this isn’t my experience when it comes to the newspaper. No matter the cost, typically my savings cover the newspaper, but I agree! I won’t pay more than newspaper stand prices. It seems to me that newspaper subscribers should get a discount for loyalty, as they do with magazine subscriptions, but they didn’t ask me.

So, in answer to your question, yes, I cancel and resubscribe. Usually, when I get my notice that rates are going up, I head down to grab a newspaper from the stand. Inside almost every newspaper is a coupon code for a discount, often for $0.50 per day (or $1 per week for the Thursday & Sunday newspaper). Then, I call up the newspaper and cancel. Sometimes the customer service representative will let me resubscribe with my code immediately, but other times, I have to wait a few weeks for my previous subscription to fully run out. That way I keep my newspaper cost as low as possible. They’ve never told me that I’ve done it too many times, so I’m not sure about a limit. I hope there isn’t one or I’m in trouble!

If you live in the Indianapolis area, the Indianapolis Star offers an alternative called the Yes! Shoppers Guide. It’s delivered to your home each week and contains the coupon inserts absolutely free. It’s only available in certain zipcodes though and can’t be sent to homes with newspaper subscriptions. And, in my experience, it doesn’t always contain all the coupons from the paper. It appears to be leftover coupons. You may get two Red Plums and no Smart Source one week for example, but it will tide you over until you can get your rates reduced again.

It’s not fun, but us frugal moms have to do what we can to save money!